Lagarde list

The Council of State has issued another verdict that will have dismayed the Greek state, having found two taxpayers not guilty of tax evasion because checks failed to establish a source that may have increased their income.

The head of Greece's  Independent Authority for Public Revenue admitted on Monday that tax authorities can no longer investigate the so-called Lagarde list for possible tax evaders, following two decisions by the Council of State last year.

In June 2017, the administrative court ruled any tax audits conducted that stretch back beyond a five-year limit are unconstitutional.

The former head of the Financial Crime Squad (SDOE), Yiannis Diotis has been handed a 10-year suspended sentence over his handling of the so-called Lagarde list of wealthy Greeks with Swiss bank deposits.

Police probing the violent murder of a 32-year-old tax inspector in an Athens cemetery have not ruled out the possibility of a link to one of the cases she handled, though a personal dispute is thought to be a more likely motive.

A prosecutor on Friday called for a former head of the Financial Crime Squad (SDOE), Yiannis Diotis, to be cleared of any wrongdoing in the handling of the so-called Lagarde list of wealthy Greeks with Swiss bank deposits, named after former French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, now head of the International Monetary Fund.

Iliana Zamanika, the corruption prosecutor who has been handling an ongoing probe into defense deals, is asking for new charges of bribery and money laundering to be leveled for crimes committed from 2002 onward, Kathimerini understands.

The lists of possible tax dodgers at the monitoring authorities' disposal are being checked at a particularly slow rate, according to data released on Thursday by Alternate Finance Minister Tryfon Alexiadis.

The Athens prosecutor has an electronic file list with thousands of bank transactions of persons in the “new” Lagarde list after HSBC whistleblower Herve Falciani handed over details on thousands of allegedly suspicious international transactions to the Greek government.

Alternate Finance Minister Tryfon Alexiadis told Greek Parliament on Tuesday that the time has come to crack down on tax evasion by adopting the best practices in other countries. He said, during the debate on the government’s policy statement that there are plans to follow the German model for tax inspections. Large teams of inspectors will raid offices of large, well-connected businesses.

Parliament Speaker Zoe Konstantopoulou recommended on Thursday that two ongoing corruption cases sent to Parliament be brought up the pending cases. The cases that are being made a priority are one relating to the Siemens scandal and one to the so-called ‘Lagarde list’.